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Human Resources at Sara Lee

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Analyze the company Sara Lee:
- Type of Organization
- Size
- Location

Common Body of Knowledge areas that need to be covered are not the same as the major activities for HR. This response needs to show how the CBK areas as covered (Management, Legal, MIS, Accounting, Economics, Finance, International Business, and Applied Decision Making) and how it interacts with the major actives of HR.

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The expert examines human resources at Sarah Lee.

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Sara Lee

Type of Organization
The Sara Lee organization is a global leader in the sale of food, beverages, and household goods to consumers across 180 countries in the world (Sara Lee, 2012). The Sara Lee Corporation is based in America and specializes in consumer goods products. Its headquarters is in Illinois. The primary products produced by Sara Lee range from packaged and frozen foods to baked goods and breads. It also sales specialized meat products, along with a host of coffee and tea products and brands that it has acquired throughout the past 50 years (Sara Lee, 2012).

Sara Lee is a global organization that continues to grow through focused acquisitions of familiar products that it can specialize in throughout many of the countries around the world. In the past 10 years, Sara Lee has focused a lot of its growth in Brazil and Italy, acquiring numerous specialty coffee companies in Brazil and meat companies in Italy to help boost the company's presence in these markets (Sara Lee, 2012).

Size
Sara Lee is a massive company that has continued growing from a small American company in the 50's, into a major global player in the international markets with production facilities in over 40 countries and sales of its products reaching over 180 countries (Datamonitor, 2012). In 2012, Sara Lee was ranked 3rd in its industry behind Kraft Foods and Tyson Foods, coming in at #220 on Forbes top 500 companies (Datamonitor, 2012).

Location:
Sara Lee is headquartered in North America. Specifically, It is located in the United States and it's company headquarters is in Downers Grove, IL. The company has operations in over 40 countries and sales its products in more than 180 countries around the world (Sara Lee, 2012).

Sara Lee CBK Areas and How they Interact with the Organizations Major HR Activities:

Management:
At Sara Lee, one of the key focus points of their management philosophy is to work hand in hand with Human Resources to ensure they are helping support a diverse and harmonious global network of well informed and well trained employees at all levels. This can be seen in the organizations creation of their "Global Business Practices" program in 1997 (Harper, 2008).

According to CEO Marcel Smits, the Global Business Practices program is an evolving and progressive program that the company's executives and employees continuously work hard to improve upon. Smits states that this program "seeks to communicate and reinforce the company's basic values" and goes on to state that it has reached "virtually every employee in the company" (Datamonitor, 2012).

Some of the key areas in which management at Sara Lee interacts with HR are as follows:
- Managers at Sara Lee at all levels are charged with creating or contributing to an overall business environment that helps to foster and grow effective working relationships between employees.
- Management works with HR and develops the organizations vision and establishes goals and strategies with a keen focus on human capabilities.
- Sara Lee has established processes that allow managers to translate the company business plans into priorities that include human resources strategies and objectives.
- Management at Sara Lee are expected to set the example and guide the organization in the development of ethical practices.
- ...

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